In Hopwood v. Texas 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996) the University of Texas and other schools in the Fifth Circuit were barred from using race in admissions. In response, Texas adopted the “Top 10%” plan guaranteeing admission to high school graduates in the top 10% of their class. Since many high schools had high concentrations of blacks and Hispanics (the only minorities Texas actually cared about), this was, and was seen as, a way to produce “diversity” without using preferential admissions. When Hopwood was in effect overruled by Grutter, Texas re-instituted race preferences in admissions, although the Top 10% plan was retained (and now accounts for about 80% of the admissions to UT Austin).
This plan, and similar ones in Florida and Texas, have proved controversial, both regarding their effect and their intent. Even critics of race preferences are divided on their merit and/or legality.
Now comes an interesting new challenge to race preferences in Texas. Grutter, of course, held that race preferences are permissible, but only after race-neutral means of producing “diversity” have been found inadequate. According to the plaintiff’s press release, linked above,
[t]he present lawsuit claims that Top-10 Percent Plan is a successful race-neutral program that forecloses UT-Austin from considering a student’s race or ethnicity in admissions and that the University failed to consider and take advantage of alternative race-neutral means of achieving “diversity” prior to implementing their racially-discriminatory policies.
In support of this argument, the brief submitted by the Project on Fair Representation, representing the plaintiff (who graduated in the top 12% of her class in a competitive high school) quotes various Texas officials emphasizing the success of its Top 10% plan.
In 2000, UT Austin President Larry R. Faulkner stated that “the Top 10 percent law has enabled us to diversify enrollment at UT Austin with talented students who succeed. Our 1999 enrollment levels for African American and Hispanic freshmen have returned to those of 1996, the year before the Hopwood decision prohibited the consideration of race in admissions policies.”
….
In a January 16, 2003 press release, UT Austin stated that the Top 10 Percent Law “has effectively compensated for the loss of affirmative action.”
….
In a January 29, 2003 press release, UT Austin announced that “[d]iversity efforts at The University of Texas at Austin have brought a higher number of freshman minority students—African Americans [and] Hispanics . . . —to the campus than were enrolled in 1996, the year a court ruling ended the use of affirmative action in the university’s enrollment process.
Thus the plaintiff alleges that UT has achieved “diversity” that it deems satisfactory without the use of racially preferential admissions, and hence the re-introduction of race preferences fails the Grutter test.
One irony, notes InsideHigherEd,
is that the University of Texas has been pushing hard since 2003 to have the state repeal the 10 percent law. At the time the law was adopted, a federal appeals court decision banning affirmative action was in place in Texas. But when the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action’s legality, the university resumed consideration of race. University officials have said that they now have enough tools available to assure a diverse class that they don’t need the top 10 percent law and fear it deprives them of flexibility. Last year, it looked like the Texas Legislature was poised to repeal the law, but at the last minute, the repeal effort failed — with many advocates for minority students saying that the 10 percent plan was still needed.
[Edward] Blum [of the Project on Fair Representation] said that if Texas does repeal the law, it would not change the suit. Texas can decide whether or not it wants to keep the law, he said. But it can’t consider race in admissions when the success of the law has demonstrated the ability to obtain diversity in a student body without using race-specific policies.
Finally, I have mentioned a number of times that I never have understood why supporters of race preferences always protest so loudly that they are not defending quotas. What exactly do they think is wrong with quotas? Similarly, I don’t understand why Justice O’Connor in Grutter felt it necessary to require schools to exhaust all race-neutral means of producing “diversity” before adopting race preferences if there’s nothing wrong with race preferences.
An added irony is that the Top 10 percent rule amounts to racial preferences by proxy, since there is effective racial segregation by schools (which is why the Top 10 percent law was enacted, and I am sure legislators knew exactly what they were doing).
What if legislators decided to scrap racial preferences in favor of class-based affirmative action, giving preferences based on poverty. Would that be “racial preference by proxy” if the legislators knew, or believed, that such a preference policy would disproportionately benefit blacks? (More whites than blacks are poor, but a higher proportion of blacks than whites are poor.)
John asked,
“Would that be “racial preference by proxy” if the legislators knew, or believed, that such a preference policy would disproportionately benefit blacks? (More whites than blacks are poor, but a higher proportion of blacks than whites are poor.)”
No is the answer. This WILL NOT benefit blacks disproportionately, if economic based AA or economic based preferences are used.
This “racial preference by proxy” simply cannot occur because of the Black-White (and Asian) Test Score Gap and the Black -White (and Asian) Achievement Gap that occur at all economic levels from the poorest to the richest levels.
Simply stated, the poorest blacks cannot qualify for any kind of higher education without solving the problems at the k-12 level because of these facts:
1. Black children from the wealthiest families have mean SAT scores lower than white and Asian children from families below the poverty line.
2. Black children of parents with graduate degrees have lower SAT scores than white and Asian children of parents with a high-school diploma or less.
This GAP does not disappear for the richest blacks and in fact, the richest blacks under perform and under achieve when compared to the poorest whites and Asians, thereby enabling the poorest of whites/Asians to “holistically” merit admissions based on a lower economic class preference, over lower performing richer blacks. Now, where does this leave the poorest blacks? They are completely kept out of higher education unless you close the GAP (test score/achievement) at the k-12 level. That’s the problem, and unless this is solved, economic AA will not solve the problems of black under performance and black under representation in elite higher education.
E makes an interesting point, but it still seems to me somewhere between possible and likely that preferences for poor people would disproportionately benefit blacks, who are after all disproportionately poor.
E’s argument is based on the black/white-Asian gap in test scores at every income level, i.e., that poor blacks have lower test scores than poor whites or Asians. That’s true, but if the poor as a class were given preferences in admissions, i.e., some poor applicants would be admitted instead of some higher-scoring applicants who were not poor, it is not self-evidently clear that none, or even few, of the poor who benefitted would be black.
To reach that conclusion one would have to see a break down of test scores and grades by income level, and within those levels by race. Perhaps such a breakdown would show that E is right — that is, that in a pool of 10,000 poor applicants (I’m making up these numbers), 40% of whom are black and from which 1,000 will be given a poverty preference, all of the top 1,000 with the highest qualifications are either white or Asian.
Maybe that’s true, but maybe it isn’t. E (or others), have you seen numbers broken down this way?
John said,
“To reach that conclusion one would have to see a break down of test scores and grades by income level, and within those levels by race. Perhaps such a breakdown would show that E is right — that is, that in a pool of 10,000 poor applicants (I’m making up these numbers), 40% of whom are black and from which 1,000 will be given a poverty preference, all of the top 1,000 with the highest qualifications are either white or Asian.”
Bottom Line:
1. Black children from the wealthiest families have mean SAT scores lower than white and Asian children from families below the poverty line.
2. Black children of parents with graduate degrees have lower SAT scores than white and Asian children of parents with a high-school diploma or less.
IN 2003, ONLY 72 BLACKS SCORED OVER 1500 on the SAT I Math and Verbal (combined) test.
Among the overall student population, 13,897 earned scores higher than 1500.
Source: The College Board
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
Almost No Blacks Among the Top Scorers
on the Scholastic Assessment Test
Bottom Line from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:
Thus, the huge and growing gap in SAT scores, and particularly the scores at the highest levels, becomes one of the nation’s most urgent problems.
Explaining the Black-White and Black-Asian SAT Gap
There are a number of reasons that are being advanced to explain the continuing and growing black-white SAT scoring gap. Sharp differences in family incomes are a major factor. Always there has been a direct correlation between family income and SAT scores. For both blacks and whites, as income goes up, so do test scores. In 2005, 28 percent of all black SAT test takers were from families with annual incomes below $20,000. Only 5 percent of white test takers were from families with incomes below $20,000. At the other extreme, 7 percent of all black test takers were from families with incomes of more than $100,000. The comparable figure for white test takers is 27 percent.
But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board’s 2005 data on the SAT:
• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.
• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.
• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000.
=================
John also said,
“That’s true, but if the poor as a class were given preferences in admissions, i.e., some poor applicants would be admitted instead of some higher-scoring applicants who were not poor, it is not self-evidently clear that none, or even few, of the poor who benefitted would be black.”
=======================
The absolute numbers of high scoring blacks are extremely small and most of them are from the richest class, and these richest blacks are outperformed, on the average, by the poorest whites/Asians. These higher performing POOR whites/Asians would be admitted over the lower performing RICH blacks based solely on a socioeconomic (SES) preference and also on MERIT ALONE, WITHOUT EITHER THE USE OF THE RACE PREFERENCE OR THE SES PREFERENCE, ALONE OR IN COMBINATION.
There aren’t any blacks from the poorest economic class that can qualify for ANY COLLEGE, let alone an elite college when we speak in terms of the SES preference. This is a predictable result of the Cascade Effect of Prof. Sanders, when the pool of minimally qualified blacks (not EQUALLY QUALIFIED) are usurped from all SES classes by the upper tier schools. There simply are not enough minimally qualified blacks available, unless you attack the root of this shortage at the k-12 level to increase the numbers of qualified blacks. The socio-economic (SES) preference will not increase the numbers of blacks without the use of the race preference. The use of the race preference is the only significant way blacks can be admitted, without increasing the pool of qualified blacks for college. This the reason why the race preference advocates are adamant in keeping the race preference.
In other words, there AIN’T ENOUGH QUALIFIED BLACKS to go around higher education from the top to the bottom of the pecking order or the food chain of highly selective colleges, or those which use race preferences.
All is not equal and one cannot just “create” equals by social engineering in selective college admissions.
HERE ARE SOME NUMBERS:
More recent data from the following of this nature is not released by the College Board to the general public any more because this data is racially sensitive and *politically incorrect*, but it is the damn truth.
Please click on:
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm#APPENDIX%20B
The Usual Suspects
Writing about test scores in the November 1993 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Duke University professor, Stanley Fish, renowned for scholarship in both law and literature, asserted: “Statistical studies have suggested that test scores reflect income and socioeconomic status. It has been demonstrated again and again that scores vary in relation to cultural background; the test’s questions assume a certain uniformity in educational experience and lifestyle and penalize those who, for whatever reason, have had a different experience and lived different kinds of lives. In short, what is being measured by the SAT is not absolutes like native ability and merit but accidents like birth, social position, access to libraries, and the opportunity to take vacations or to take SAT prep courses.”
Lani Guinier, Professor of Law at Harvard University, writing in the New York Times of June 24, 1997, argues, “But within every racial and ethnic group, test scores go up with family income. One explanation for this may be that students who come from better-off families can afford coaching for the test. Students from wealthier families also have other advantages. They are more likely to have been exposed to books and travel.”
We know that test scores go up with family income. They also improve with socioeconomic status. Both trends are observed within all ethnic and racial groups. But before you blame income and socioeconomic status for the test score gaps, consider this:
Black children from the wealthiest families have mean SAT scores lower than white children from families below the poverty line.
Figure 3 shows how math SAT scores increase with family income for both whites and blacks, confirming Professor Guinier. However, black students from families earning more than $70,000 (1995 dollars) score lower than white students whose families earned less than $10,000. Figure 4 shows more of the same for the verbal SAT. Here too, the wealthiest blacks score below the poorest whites. (Complete data can be found in Appendix B.)
As for “social position, access to libraries, and the opportunity to take vacations or to take SAT prep courses,” consider this:
Black children of parents with graduate degrees have lower SAT scores than white children of parents with a high-school diploma or less.
Figures 5 and 6 show, respectively, how math and verbal SAT scores for blacks and whites vary with parental levels of education. In both cases, black children of parents with graduate degrees score lower than white children whose parents have a high-school diploma or less.
When Professor Fish asserts that test scores reflect income and socioeconomic status, he is, of course, correct. We cannot conclude, however, as he does, that either is to blame for the black-white SAT gap. Figures 5 and 6, show that at every level of income and social advantage the gap exists. In fact, it remains remarkably constant when economic and cultural levels are controlled.
Professor Guinier observes that within every racial and ethnic group, test scores go up with family income. Guinier leaves no doubt she is aware in detail of the SAT data. Her syllogism begins, “. . . students who come from better-off families can afford coaching for the test . . . They are more likely to have been exposed to books and travel.” We are to complete it with: Minorities have less income and cultural exposure; therefore, minorities have lower scores.
More SAT data may be found in Appendix B. There, you will discover that Asians mostly sit on top of the heap; that whites, Mexican Americans and blacks follow in that order. Some details prove interesting. For example, whites enjoy a verbal advantage over Asians that disappears at high levels of income and social advantage. Regrettably, the College Board no longer discloses these data. In 1996, they stopped publishing performance by income and parental education disaggregated by race and ethnicity.
MORE HARD NUMBERS
These numbers do not have a break down of test scores and grades by income level, and within those levels by race, but if they did, they would definitely show the dearth of high scorers for blacks at the lowest income levels, since there is a scarcity of high scorers or even minimally qualified scorers among all blacks, including the the richest blacks.
From the book, “America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible” by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, Simom and Schuster, 1997 in Chapter 14, titled “Higher Learning”, in Table 4 labeled, “Number and The Percent of Black, White, and Asian Students with High SAT Scores, 1981 and 1995”: Source; The College Board, Ethnic Data on Scoring, 1981 and 1995, the figures and percentages for each score level are charted.
The Racial Scoring Gaps in the SAT I Math and SAT I Verbal Tests (Black-White, Black-Asian, and White-Asian SAT I Test Score Gaps) are below for 1995 and these Gaps have not narrowed since. In fact, they have become much wider.
For example, in 1995, for 103,872 Black test takers of the SAT 1 Test, in the Math, 107 Blacks scored between 750 and 800, 509 Blacks scored between 700 and 749, 1,437 Blacks scored between 650 and 699. Total > 650 for Blacks was 2,053 or 2.0% of all Black test takers. Total > 700 was 616 or 0.6% or six tenths of 1 percent. Total > 750 was 107 or 0.1% or one tenth of 1 percent.
In 1995, for 103,872 Black test takers, in the Verbal, 184 Blacks scored between 700 and 800, 465 Blacks scored between 650 and 699, and 1,115 Blacks scored between 600 and 649. Total > 600 was 1,764 or 1.7% of Black test takers. Total > 700 was 184 or 0.15% or less than two tenths of 1 percent.
In 1995, for 674,343 White test takers of the SAT 1 Test in the Math, 9,519 Whites scored between 750 and 800, 29,774 Whites scored between 700 and 749, and 51,306 Whites between 650 and 699. Total > 650 for Whites was 90,599 or 13.4% of all White test takers. Total > 700 was 39,293 or 5.8%. Total > 750 was 9,519 or 1.4%.
In 1995, for 674,343 White test takers of the SAT 1 Test, in the Verbal, 8,978 Whites scored between 700 and 800, 19,272 scored between 650 and 699, and 36,700 Whites scored between 600 and 649. Total > 600 was 64,950 or 9.6%.Total > 700 was 8,978 or 1.3%.
In 1995, for 81,514 Asian test takers of the SAT 1 Test in the Math, 3,827 Asians scored between 750 and 800, 7,758 Asians scored between 700 and 749, and 9,454 Asians scored between 650 and 699. Total > 650 for Asians was 21,039 or 25.8%. Total > 700 was 11,585 or 14.2%. Total > 750 was 3,827 or 4.7%.
In 1995, for 81,514 Asian test takers of the SAT 1 Test in the Verbal, 1,476 Asians scored between 700 and 800, 2,513 Asians scored between 650 and 699, and 4,221 Asians scored between 600 and 649. Total > 600 was 8,190 or 10%. Total > 700 was 1,476 or 1.8%.
Therefore, in reference to the above data for 1995, Asians out perform the other two groups at the highest levels of the SAT 1 scores in terms of rate of attainment or percentage of the total group at each score level above 650 and 700 and above in both the Math and the Verbal of the SAT 1 Test. In fact, in the 1999 data given by the College Board: Performance by Ethnic Groups, the rate of attainment or percentage of the total group at each score level above 650 and 700 and 750 and above has risen for the Asian group both independent of and relative to the other two groups.
In 1995, there were only 107 Blacks with a Math score of 750 or above or 0.1% (one tenth of 1 percent) of the total number of Black test takers.
There were 9,519 Whites with a Math score of 750 or above or 1.4% of the total number of White test takers.
There were 3,827 Asians with a Math score of 750 or above or 4.7% of the total number of Asian test takers.
Asians out perform Whites at 3.4 times the rate at which they score 750 or above (4.7% vs. 1.4%).
Asians out perform Blacks at 47 times the rate at which they score 750 or above (4.7% vs. 0.1% or one tenth of one percent).
More recent data of this nature is not released by the College Board to the general public any more because this data is racially sensitive and *politically incorrect*, but it is the damn truth.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm#APPENDIX%20B
More SAT data may be found in Appendix B. There, you will discover that Asians mostly sit on top of the heap; that whites, Mexican Americans and blacks follow in that order. Some details prove interesting. For example, whites enjoy a verbal advantage over Asians that disappears at high levels of income and social advantage. Regrettably, the College Board no longer discloses these data. In 1996, they stopped publishing performance by income and parental education disaggregated by race and ethnicity
Posted by: E | February 14, 2008 9:03 AM
I wonder when minority community leaders will cease the unholy trade of race preferences in lieu of education. I say leaders because 75% of black parents support vouchers, they recognize this abombination. But minority community leaders don’t have their contituents interests at heart, they have their own. Their actions prove they are perfectly comfortable failing to educate children as the price of maintaining their electoral coalition which is hugely dependent on the education system for votes, money, activists, and indocrination.
I wonder if Obama’s campaign may effect this in the black community. Black leaders disproportionately endorsed Clinton, primarily due her institutional power and past political favors. Yet those endorsements have virtually no effect on black voting patterns. Maybe this is a step toward replacing the black leadership in this country which is out of step with its constituents.
Posted by: MJ | February 14, 2008 12:15 PM
So how does one account for the advantage enjoyed by a mixed white and Chinese student? Are they doubly advantaged?
Posted by: Loki on the run | February 14, 2008 8:58 PM
E wrote: “More recent data of this nature is not released by the College Board to the general public any more because this data is racially sensitive and *politically incorrect*, but it is the damn truth.”
That is only partly true. The raw data or the decile cohorts are no longer published, but close assumptions of the data can be extracted from the published information via the statistical data given.
Further more, it is reasonable to presume that the data is no longer disclosed because it might be used against the methods and activists in affirmative action politics today. The reports have always shown a race gap for as long as comparative data has been collected. It has always been politically incorrect and has been published nontheless in order to proove the necessity for action.
I believe it is no coincidence, that the change in strategies occured in a time when criticism of special need politics ceased to be a taboo. For as long as any criticism of black and minority politics was an untouchable taboo the protagonists were safe from being challenged on the topics of effectivity and objective measures. The complaints about the existence of the race gap were seen as proof of further need and nobody dared to question the methods implied. Now that criticism is no longer a taboo, the apparatchicks face danger from two sides: the question of justification in respect to the 14th amandment and the question of effect on behalf of the people whom they are supposed to help. Minority politics have always been argued for as a crude but effective method where the violation of the civil rights of white and asian people have been justified as necessary to help black people and other minorities overcome the rage cap. But what if that is just another lie, what if minority politics is in fact not helping minorities?
It seems that is a painful question, too painful to be answered. In a strange coincidence the minority poilitcs representatives and instituions applying the criticised methods have almost simultaniously started to hide away any information that might help proove just how useful minority politics really are at about the time when critics were starting to tear down the taboo.
In the most recent publication of the Collegeboard, the Total Profile Report of 2007, there is enough Information to partially retrieve the numbers you were looking for. Of course, this cannot replace the actual raw data, but it will give a reasonable estimate of what to expect.
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2007/national-report.pdf
On the ethnic analysis page we find the results for the three subtests as averages and standard deviations (table 8).
Critical Reading:
Asians: Avg 514 SD 124
Whites: Avg 527 SD 102
Blacks: Avg 433 SD 97
Mathematics:
Asians: Avg 578 SD 123
Whites: Avg 534 SD 102
Blacks: Avg 429 SD 97
Writing:
Asians: Avg 513 SD 121
Whites: Avg 518 SD 100
Blacks: Avg 425 SD 93
The large sample sizes of 72109 Asians, 828038 Whites and 159849 Blacks allow for a reasonable precision with the statistical standard errors of .46 .11 and .23 respectively for asians, whites and blacks diminishing when building larger clusters.
When looking at the top end of the distributions, it is important to not forget, that a lower average can easily be compensated by a greater standard deviation. This happens to the asian group in the critical reading and writing disciplines. In both cases the difference in average ammounts to 10,4% and 4,1% of the Asian Standard deviation and therefore the “rank” is reversed when focusing on the top end of the scale.
Further more it is noticable, that the standard deviations are very consistent and that the black group average is consistantly about one standard deviation below the white group average.
Looking at the cohorts of +700 and +750:
1. Presuming normal distribution, the cohort 700+ is situated at a x SD for each group and discipline:
Critical reading:
Asians: 1.5
Whites: 1.7
Blacks: 2.8
Mathematics:
Asians: 1.0
Whites: 1.6
Blacks: 2.8
Writing:
Asians: 1.5
Whites: 1.8
Blacks: 3.0
Therefore the percentage of each group in the 700+ cohort can be assumed at:
Critical reading:
Asians: 6.7 %
Whites: 4.5 %
Blacks: 0.3 %
Mathematics:
Asians: 16.1 %
Whites: 5.2 %
Blacks: 0.3 %
Writing:
Asians: 6.1 %
Whites: 3.4 %
Blacks: 0.2 %
And in absolute numbers of students who achieved more than 700 points according to group sample size:
Critical reading:
Asians: ~ 4800
Whites: ~ 37200
Blacks: ~ 470
Mathematics:
Asians: ~ 11600
Whites: ~ 42900
Blacks: ~ 410
Writing:
Asians: ~ 4400
Whites: ~ 28500
Blacks: ~ 250
2. Presuming normal distribution, the cohort 750+ is situated at a x SD for each group and discipline:
Critical reading:
Asians: 1.9
Whites: 2.2
Blacks: 3.3
Mathematics:
Asians: 1.4
Whites: 2.1
Blacks: 3.3
Writing:
Asians: 2.0
Whites: 2.3
Blacks: 3.5
Therefore the percentage of each group in the 750+ cohort can be assumed at:
Critical reading:
Asians: 2.9 %
Whites: 1.4 %
Blacks: 0.1 %
Mathematics:
Asians: 8.1 %
Whites: 1.7 %
Blacks: 0.05%
Writing:
Asians: 2.5 %
Whites: 1.0 %
Blacks: 0.02 %
And in absolute numbers of students who achieved more than 750 points according to group sample size:
Critical reading:
Asians: ~ 2000
Whites: ~ 11900
Blacks: ~ 90
Mathematics:
Asians: ~ 5800
Whites: ~ 14200
Blacks: ~ 75
Writing:
Asians: ~ 1800
Whites: ~ 8400
Blacks: ~ 40
For the sake of camparison to your variable of “outperforming at the score of 750 or above”:
Critical reading:
Asians outperform whites at a ratio of 2.0:1
Whites outperform blacks at a ratio of 26.5:1 *
Asians outperform blacks at a ratio of 52.4:1 *
Mathematics:
Asians outperform whites at a ratio of 4.7:1
Whites outperform blacks at a ratio of 36.5:1 *
Asians outperform blacks at a ratio of 172.6:1 *
Writing:
Asians outperform whites at a ratio of 2.5:1
Whites outperform blacks at a ratio of 42.8:1 *
Asians outperform blacks at a ratio of 105.5:1 *
* The problem of statistical error invalidates these numbers due to the comparatively very small sample size for african americans. Statistical inacuracies would amount to the asian-black outperformance ratio in mathematics presumably falling somewhere between 100 and 300. This inacuracy thereby renders the values useless and meaningless.
I do not believe these numbers to carry any meaning in detail, but they do show a rough general tendency: that the race gaps are widening- the asian-white gap increasing by roughly one third and the asian-black gap roughly quadrupling within a decade. Although I have derious doubt concerning the accuracy of these ratios, I believe it is irrelevant to the basic problem at what speed the race gap is widening. The basic problem is, that the measures that have been and are being implied for almost half a century either have no effect at all or are contraproductive in helping the majority of african americans.
For the discipline of mathematics, where the gaps have shown to be greatest, the decile scores should be approximately:
Decile | Asians | Whites | Blacks
9. | 736 | 665 | 554
8. | 682 | 620 | 511
7. | 643 | 588 | 480
6. | 610 | 560 | 454
5. | 578 | 534 | 429
4. | 547 | 509 | 405
3. | 514 | 481 | 379
2. | 475 | 449 | 348
1. | 421 | 404 | 305
The shocking aspect of this is not the difference in the top deciles, but rather that the white-black difference remains in low deciles. The differences in the first deciles of whites and asians converge to a presumable minimum at about 400 Points. The tragedy is, that about 40% of african americans fall below that minimum and that the cohort of 350 points and below is almost exclusively african american. The real problem here is, that minority programs have always just concentrated on exploiting the low average of african americans to attaining a bonus for the elite whilst ignoring the broad community. I know this is a grave accusation, but the expectable results of this would be a thriving black elite that is well established in society and ecconomy profiting from minority politics and a large protion of black people who are in social, ecconomical and educational aspects literally falling off the bottom end of the scale. There, I believe, lies the rub.
Posted by: Andrew | February 15, 2008 9:43 AM
Andrew, I commend you for your outstanding statistical analysis of recently published racial SAT I score numbers by the College Board. I also agree with you on the importance and relevance of your findings.
Good work, Andrew!
Posted by: e | February 15, 2008 6:21 PM
http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
Almost No Blacks Among the Top Scorers
on the Scholastic Assessment Test
It is important to explain how the SAT racial scoring gap challenges affirmative action policies at the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities. Under the SAT scoring system, most non-minority students hoping to qualify for admission to any of the nation’s 25 highest-ranked universities and 25 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges need to score at least 700 on each portion of the SAT.
For admission to the very highest ranked, brand-name schools such as Princeton or MIT, applicants need scores of 750 to be considered for admission. Yet, as we shall see, only a minute percentage of black test takers score at these levels. Thus, if high-ranking colleges and universities were to abandon their policies of race-sensitive admissions, they will be choosing their first-year students from an applicant pool in which there will be practically no blacks.
Let’s be more specific about the SAT racial gap among high-scoring applicants. In 2005, 153,132 African Americans took the SAT test. They made up 10.4 percent of all SAT test takers. But only 1,132 African-American college-bound students scored 700 or above on the math SAT and only 1,205 scored at least 700 on the verbal SAT. Nationally, more than 100,000 students of all races scored 700 or above on the math SAT and 78,025 students scored 700 or above on the verbal SAT. Thus, in this top-scoring category of all SAT test takers, blacks made up only 1.1 percent of the students scoring 700 or higher on the math test and only 1.5 percent of the students scoring 700 or higher on the verbal SAT.
If we eliminate Asians and other minorities from the statistics and compare just white and black students, we find that 5.8 percent of all white SAT test takers scored 700 or above on the verbal portion of the test. But only 0.79 percent of all black SAT test takers scored at this level. Therefore, whites were more than seven times as likely as blacks to score 700 or above on the verbal SAT. Overall, there are more than 39 times as many whites as blacks who scored at least 700 on the verbal SAT.
On the math SAT, only 0.7 percent of all black test takers scored at least 700 compared to 6.3 percent of all white test takers. Thus, whites were nine times as likely as blacks to score 700 or above on the math SAT. Overall, there were 45 times as many whites as blacks who scored 700 or above on the math SAT.
If we raise the top-scoring threshold to students scoring 750 or above on both the math and verbal SAT — a level equal to the mean score of students entering the nation’s most selective colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and CalTech — we find that in the entire country 244 blacks scored 750 or above on the math SAT and 363 black students scored 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Nationwide, 33,841 students scored at least 750 on the math test and 30,479 scored at least 750 on the verbal SAT. Therefore, black students made up 0.7 percent of the test takers who scored 750 or above on the math test and 1.2 percent of all test takers who scored 750 or above on the verbal section.
Once again, if we eliminate Asians and other minorities from the calculations and compare only blacks and whites, we find that 0.2 percent of all black test takers scored 750 or above on the verbal SAT compared to 2.2 percent of all white test takers. Thus, whites were 11 times as likely as blacks to score 750 or above on the verbal portion of the test. Overall, there were 49 times as many whites as blacks who scored at or above the 750 level.
On the math SAT, only 0.16 percent of all black test takers scored 750 or above compared to 1.8 percent of white test takers. Thus, whites were more than 11 times as likely as blacks to score 750 or above on the math SAT. Overall, there were more than 61 times as many whites as blacks who scored 750 or above on the math section of the SAT.
In a race-neutral competition for the approximately 50,000 places for first-year students at the nation’s 25 top-ranked universities, high-scoring blacks would be buried by a huge mountain of high-scoring non-black students. Today, under prevailing affirmative action admissions policies, there are about 3,000 black first-year students matriculating at these 25 high-ranking universities, about 6 percent of all first-year students at these institutions. But if these schools operated under a strict race-neutral admissions policy where SAT scores were the most important qualifying yardstick, these universities could fill their freshman classes almost exclusively with students who score at the very top of the SAT scoring scale. As shown previously, black students make up at best between 1 and 2 percent of these high-scoring groups.
Looking to the Future
In the Grutter case upholding affirmative action in college admissions, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s decision expressed the goal of eliminating affirmative action over the next 25 years. At the moment there is no evidence that substantial progress toward closing the test scoring gap will occur. Thus, the huge and growing gap in SAT scores, and particularly the scores at the highest levels, becomes one of the nation’s most urgent problems.
Posted by: E | February 18, 2008 1:45 AM
Posted by: E | February 28, 2008 5:25 PM